Love Fungus 2011

Ok, here's the story. The band i was in 20 years ago have reformed for recently for a bit of a laugh, and for something else which i can't really speak about at the moment! We were called Love Fungus, and we played very short punky, pop, rock songs! I've just done some new artwork for our website, and here are a few images to show how things have developed, including the original poster i did for a gig all those years ago!

This is just a little taster of things to come, got loads of other ideas i want to do. But in the meantime, check out our website http://www.lovefungus.com/ for more information about what we're about to get up to! I'll keep you posted about what's going on as soon as i can reveal what we're going to be doing!

26 Flavours / Seaweed

As part of the 26 Flavours Of Cornwall project, myself and writer Kieran Haynes were asked to produce a piece of work about seaweed. The project paired 26 writers with 26 designers, matched each team with an item of Cornish produce and challenged them to come up with pieces of art that combine words and design in the form of paper table-settings. There will then be an exhibition of the work at Trebah Garden.

To give ourselves a taste and a feel for seaweed, we were put in contact with Miles from Foodswild (http://www.foodswild.com/), who forages around the Cornish coastline for this rather tasty delicacy! Miles took myself and Kieran, my partner in crime for this project, down to Porthleven to jump around the rock pools and pick out some seaweed for our lunch!

After a morning of foraging, Miles had pointed out and picked 4 or 5 different types of seaweed. Some of which we even tried raw as we stood on the rocks! The rest were to be taken back to Miles' house, for him to show us several different ways of cooking up our pickings. You can have a look at our 26 Flavours page, where Kieran has jotted down some notes on our day in the rock pools http://www.26flavours.com/flavours/seaweed.

It was now our job to use our experience, and try to combine some imagery and words suitable for our ode to seaweed. Above is a first idea i had, taken from Kieran's blog post titled 'Monsters Of Rock (Pools)'. The idea then progressed to some kind of creature made of seaweed, looking up, and praising the moon and the lunar tides that dictate it's life! Below is a draft, close to the final image that was used for the final piece, minus Kieran's words. You'll be able to see the finished article at the show at Trebah Gardens!

Akil The MC - Artwork And Tour Poster.

Dynamite Hip Hop have been putting on some quality Hip Hop nights down here in Penzance, and i've done a few posters for them now! The latest one being for Akil the MC, who was back in town after a stomping gig last year. This time around i did a poster for the gig down here, and also a UK Tour poster too. The artwork for this has also been used on merch for Akil being sold on his tour!

For the Penzance gig, Akil was going to be supported by 4 resident Dynamite DJ's, who are all local guys that i know well. So i decided to do a poster which would involve the 4 local DJ's standing behind Akil. Here's a few images that show the progression from sketch to finished portrait of each DJ that would eventually be used on the poster.

Each one of the portraits were hand drawn, then touched up in Photoshop. It was quite a challenge to draw 4 people that you know, and try and make them look like them too!

So, on the poster then, you get Louis Vanhinsberg, Ali Walker, Paul Robbins and Paul Weschke done over in a McIvor style! The guys were quite pleased with the results, although Mr. Weschke did say he would have preferred me to make him look a bit more street, and a little less camp!

Sorry Paul, it's only slightly camp, but it still fitted in well with the other guys once they were all grouped together to flank the great Jurassic 5 MC. I hand drew logo for his name too, and then mashed everything together to make the final poster below.

Tom Sweetman from 1 Step Productions, the company who is handling Akil's UK Tour, then asked me to do a different version of the poster with just Akil on it, to use as the tour poster which could also be sold at shows across the UK. For this, i took out the local DJ's from the Penzance poster, and then changed the colouring of the poster, to still make it look like both posters were still relevant to each other.

It was also Toms birthday the day of the Penzance gig, so me and Charlie Quinn (Dynamite Hip Hop Head Honcho) decided to treat him to a present consisting of prints of posters for gigs he'd organised in Penzance as a memory of his adventures with 1 Step Productions! These included gigs by Akil and Souls Of Mischief. Nice little pressie for him to put on the walls of his office i reckon! There'll be more Dynamite / 1 Step posters from me coming soon!

Flash Bulb Ears!

A mate of mine asked me to do some kind of logo for him for his Photography website. I'm kind of in the early stages at the moment, but he wanted to incorporate an eyeball with a camera shutter, so below is what i've been playing around with for starters!

I tried using various parts of the camera, or even different bits of a photographers kit like tripods and umbrellas! It's kind of starting to develop into a character at the moment, but still needs a bit of refining.


Still a way to go yet, gotta get some more feedback from my mate for this last design that kinda looks like a bear! More to follow on this when there's more progress!

Lost Luggage at Glastonbury!

If you were at Glastonbury this year, you may have stumbled across a very strange little experience late at night in the Shangri-La area. The Lost Luggage Department was a strange mix of performance and party, thrown together by my good friend Joe Gray. He'd constructed what was supposed to the lost luggage department of a Teleport company, and then proceeded to wreak havoc on the punters at Glasto with mischief and mayhem!

Joe asked me if i could come up with a design for him, which he could use as part of the performance. He'd actually built a teleport unit in the corner of this crazy set up, which they were going to magically transport members of the unsuspecting public to strange new worlds!

He wanted me to come up with some kind of in-flight safety card, similar to that which you get on a plane and are supposed to read before take off. Above is my attempt at such a safety card, depicting probable scenarios that could happen during the duration of your jouney in the Teleport machine! Created with hand drawn images, then touched up in Photoshop.

Getting Married In New York!

Not me! I'm not getting married! I did this piece of work for my friends Sue and Phil from Derby, who are getting married in New York in May! Lucky buggers really, but i can't make it to the ceremony so i did them this for their wedding invitation. They're having a party back in Derby in June, so i'm going to that. I used to go to Uni there, and used to live with Sue who was on my Fine Art degree too! Really enjoyed doing this, and a bit of a departure for me too. Made with spray paint, acrylic paint and Posca pen on A3 paper.

More ClusterFunk!

Another in the series of ClusterFunk posters! As you can see this one is Issue 4, and will hopefully carry on to be along lasting series of posters...... as long as the boys can keep on top of things, and keep on getting those gigs!

Hopefully they will be having a few up Bristol way, so my poster artwork will be traveling up the line a little bit!

This poster was hand drawn first, and then touched up in Photoshop...... i love touching things up!

New Work

Just starting to sort out a load of new work at the moment. Got loads of photos to sift through as source material, and i've just started making some sketches of what i want to do.

Here's one of the first finished sketches of a view of Lands End, from just above the rope bridge that's there. It's just a basic idea at the moment of how i want these landscapes to look. i want some of them to look quite minimal with some silhouetted shapes thrown in!

This sketch was created using spray paint and Posca pen on A3 paper.

Take Me Away From The Wind And The Rain.

Finally got this painting finished the other week, it had been sitting in the studio nearly finished for a while! Got it finished in time to put into Newlyn Gallery's Art Sale For Haiti exhibition.

I think the sale raised about £8000 in total, which all went to help the people of Haiti.

This painting was created using spray paint, acrylic paint and Posca pens on canvas.

Carnival of Love.

This was a bit of an experiment with some of the shapes i've used in the past on my StreetGraf paintings, where i took peoples tags from around the streets and stylized them! Was trying to make it look like some of the shapes you might find at the fair ground, especially the waltzers!

This was made using spray paint and Posca Pen on card and paper.

I did it as a gift for my girlfriend for Valentine's Day! Think it worked quite well, might have to do a bit more experimenting with the shapes and the spray paint too. Not bad for a first go though!

We're All Souls Of Mischief!

So far, January has been a pretty hard month. The hardest thing about it has been not drinking! It's my own fault, i normally do the now customary January detox along with the rest of the world....... but this year i decided not to drink for 6 months! Sounds a bit extreme to most people, but i realized i've probably been drinking constantly for the last 21 years! This was a bit of a scary revelation to me, so i decided drastic action was called for! Now that January is over it doesn't seem that much of a task now, only 5 more months to go!

Before Christmas i was asked by my friend Charlie Quinn if i'd do a poster for the club that he works for in town. Charlie's taken the brave step of putting on some big live acts in our area, which could be a risk given the state of the club and live music scene in Penzance at this moment in time! The gig in question is for hip hop band, Souls Of Mischief, who had somewhat of a cult status in the early 90's. This is a pretty big gig for Penzance, although other promoters have been responsible for some very big gigs in the past.... most notably Dion Star & Music Evolution for putting on live acts such as Fat Fredd'y Drop, Bonobo, Alice Russell and AIM. Hopefully Charlie can inject a bit more passion and effort into live music in Cornwall and Penzance in particular. I agreed to do the poster for him, as i think Charlie deserves all the help he can get! Here is the result which i was pretty chuffed with. The actual art work is on A0 paper, and i've used Spray Paint, Acrylic and Posca Pens. Ive taken some Aztec imagery as a reference as the bands new album is called Montezuma's Revenge, which is a phrase used to describe an upset stomach in a foreign land.... a bit like Delhi Belly!

I only finished the poster on Friday, just in time to relish the arrival of my mate James from Bristol. James was coming down to stay for the weekend to get away from the city and get back to nature! He's a bit of a nature boy, loves rock climbing, snowboarding, mountain biking, is a tree sugreon and an all round Ray Mears kind of guy! On Saturday he took me and my son Jack down to Sennen near Lands End to do a spot of rock climbing. Jack is 9 years old, and has done a bit of rock climbing, and i dabbled a bit when i was at Uni too. We had to scramble down to where we were going to climb from, which was a long way down. It was a pretty sunny day, but it was bitterly cold too and as we were making our way down it even started hailing pretty heavily! Once in position James got all the ropes and harnesses ready for our ascent. He went up to the top first with the rope, and then sent it back down to us for Jack to start his climb. He was a bit scared at first, but like i said, he'd done it before at Lands End and also on a few rock walls too.

Once he got going though, there was no problem at all. Kids don't really have any fear at that age, i get more scared of him jumping around on the edge of a cliff! My turn came, and i have to admit i was a bit nervous a bit too! The sun had come back out, but about half way up my climb it started bloody hailing again while i was stuck to this rock hanging over the sea! At one point i couldn't feel the ends of my fingers, so much so, i had to stop for about 5 minutes to warm them up! It's a weird sensation when you're trying to grip onto the rocks when you can't feel your fingers, you just don't know if you've got a grip or not! I managed to drag my 15 stone frame to the top in the end, which is no mean feat! My whole body is aching now! It was worth it though, felt awesome to have been able to take Jack out to do stuff like that. Hopefully James is gonna be back down a bit more over the summer which means more climbing expeditions for me and Jack, and the weather will be a lot warmer so we won't loose our fingers to frost bite! Maybe then, after completing some more difficult climbs, i'll be able to sit down with James afterwards and have a nice cold pint! Roll on the summer!

A Brief Update of Slackness

Ok, i've been completely and utterly useless at updating this blog, but it's a new year and another resolution of mine was to keep on top of things! So to start is a brief update of everything that i've been up to since i posted my last blog about 9 months ago...... proper slackness!

The mural project that i was working on in Truro came and went very successfully! After several more workshops and a consultation day with the public, we eventually embarked on putting a pretty wild image on a huge wall in a public space! The design for it was based on some drawings of eyes that one of the youngsters from the group had come up with. I then came up with a design which we had to submit to the local Council. Basically the group wanted to show some transformation of a character to show their progression as troubled teenagers who had been battling with drink and drugs. The painting of the wall took about 6 days in total, but was probably completed over a period of 2 weeks due to the ever unpredictable British weather! Overall, the project was an amazing success and a huge benefit to everyone who was involved.

Next up for me was the Jack's Cow project. This involved a life size fibre glass cow, an airport and Posca Pens! The project was organised for Hall For Cornwall in Truro, and involved local businesses commissioning artists to customize a life size fibre glass cow. I was lucky enough to be invited by Newquay Airport to customize their cow, and so began the task of drawing and painting onto one of the hardest things i've ever had to paint! My design involved images that showed places in Cornwall, one being Newquay and the other being St. Michael's Mount. It was a great experience, and my cow was displayed outside Newquay Aiport for about 2 months. One of the best parts of the project was taking the finished cow on a photo shoot with photographer Steve Tanner. We took the cow to various locations in and around Penzance to get some very interesting photos. First location was my mate Pup's field in St. Buryan which was full of cows, and the next was on the beach in Marazion in front of St. Michael's Mount!

July i got asked to do a poster for a music festival that a group of friends were organising in September in Sennen. The event was called OceanDaze, and involved local bands and DJ's and a surf competition too. For this poster i carried on the tradition of customizing objects, and painted up an old surfboard that my friend Lloyd kindly donated. Once it was painted up, me and Mike Adams (one of the event organisers) went on a dawn photo shoot down to Sennen to get a photo of the board on top of the cliffs. This photo was then used for the backdrop of the poster to drop the text on top of. A nice little job, and a very messy weekend at the event was had by all. Looking forward to next years event now, it's going to be bigger and better than the first one.... and hopefully i'll be asked to do the next poster too! Got an awesome idea of what i want to paint on for the next one!

I moved to a new studio while all this was going on too. Nice little spot on Chapel Street in Penzance, ontop of the Regent Hotel. It's got amazing views over Mount's Bay looking out towards St. Michael's Mount, very inspirational indeed! Since i've been in here, i've been working on ideas for new paintings for myself and on various posters and artwork for other people. I've been working on a series of posters for some DJ friends going under the name of ClusterFunk. I've tried to make each poster follow on from the last and try and create a sense of identity for the guys. I've really enjoyed doing these posters, which have been made up of old and new images. I've also been spending some time playing with my new studio toy! I finally managed to get myself an iMac, and it's been distracting me ever since. I've got no time for distraction now, got lots of projects that i need to complete so that i can get on with more creating! I did manage to find time to grow a moustache for charity in November though, despite my claims that i don't have enough time to do things! There's always time to make yourself look like a twat to help other people less fortunate than you!

So that was a brief history of my slackness over the last 9 months or so, since the last time i could get off my arse and update this blog! What's next then? Hopefully there might be a few more mural projects over the summer, still looking into a couple of options that might mean me chasing people and doing a lot of leg work! But if they come off, they'll be worth it. I'm in the middle of doing a poster for a local Hip Hop promoter, he's managed to get Souls Of Mischief to come down to the end of the line that is Penzance.... and i'm doing a poster! I then have to crack on with some new paintings, i've got loads of photos to work from and loads of new ideas. Hopefully by July i should have the majority of work for me to be able to put on a new show somewhere, but it remains to be seen where! A new year, and some new challenges ahead.... lets hope i don't leave it so long to keep my blog up to date! Here's to slackness!